Kraken Opens U. S. Perpetual Futures for Crypto Traders

Kraken has just launched regulated perpetual futures in the United States, a move that brings a popular crypto trading tool from overseas exchanges onto domestic soil. The new contracts are offered through Kraken Pro and appear on Bitnomial, a futures exchange that the company’s parent bought earlier this year. Users can trade these products in the same window as spot assets, margin trades and even futures listed on the CME. Perpetual futures let traders bet on price swings without actually owning the underlying coin, and they can stay open forever as long as margin is maintained. This type of contract has become the main way people trade crypto derivatives worldwide, with Kraken reporting that global volume topped $60 trillion in 2025. Most of this activity has happened on foreign platforms like Hyperliquid, where professional traders chase deep liquidity and continuous leverage. Even the newer prediction‑market site Kalshi pulled in over $1 billion of volume on its first week after launching perps.The U. S. launch follows the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s recent approval of regulated perpetual contracts, which also opened the door for Coinbase to link American users with global options and futures markets. Kraken has been building a derivatives engine through acquisitions such as NinjaTrader in May 2025 and Bitnomial the next year, then adding CME‑listed crypto futures and margin trading for U. S. customers. According to Kraken’s derivatives chief, early adopters will likely be sophisticated traders, with institutional investors coming later after internal reviews. The initial offering covers big names like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Chainlink, Dogecoin, Litecoin and Avalanche, with plans to add more tokens and collateral options as the market grows.